Category: Internationalisation

The majority of academic staff in the United Kingdom will have come across the UKPSF in one form or another. It has been a benchmark for my academic development practice for fourteen years. The United Kingdom Professional Standards Framework is a set of statements, arguably objectives, for the 'complete' skill profile for an academic working in tertiary education. Divided into three areas, core knowledge, professional values and areas of activity, there is some potential overlap but it remains sufficiently broad to reflect the reality at the chalk-face (or PowerPoint screen). It has proved itself to be largely unopposed in the UK context (certainly there are few rivals) and despite some tweaking of the original 2004 version in 2011, unchanged.

The stability and endurance of the framework is a tribute to its authors, with contributions drawn from across the tertiary sector. The homogeneous nature of the inputs does give us a framework that sometimes feels like a United Nations Security Council resolution, written in diplomatic English, designed not to offend and to be 'universal', in other words euro-centric. Therein lies the difficulty.

As the Aotearoa New Zealand academic community has struggled to adopt and adapt the UKPSF to their unique post-colonial context, they have faced a challenge. In Aotearoa, the Treaty of Waitangi is enshrined in much of public policy and practice. An acknowledgement of the values ascribed to indigenous Māori perspectives, the Treaty is a touchstone for any professional practice framework. For this reason, Ako Aotearoa (NZ's professional academic body equivalent to AdvanceHE, the inheritor of the HEA's remit) has been working towards a revised version of the UKPSF. Incorporating a range of Māori cultural and philosophical perspectives, kaupapa māori, including philosophical doctrines, indigenous knowledge, skills, attitudes and values, is an ongoing challenge. So far, I am aware only of one iteration of an NZ revised PSF operated by Auckland University of Technology, AUT, under the name of Ako Aronui (http://cflat.aut.ac.nz/ako-aronui/). Having been denied the opportunity to modify the original UKPSF (to ensure recognition process remained intact), the team at AUT have appended a Māori perspective to each element in the framework (Buissink et al., 2017). At face value, this could appear to be a mere translation, but it is much more than that. It could be seen as a cultural reinterpretation of each concept or notion. It falls short of a reappraisal of the fundamental indigenous approaches to learning, but it appears respectful and well-considered.

Australian colleagues have taken a somewhat different approach, drafting a 'University Teaching Criteria and Standards Framework' that directly linking roles and promotional structures to values and attributes within their framework. Australian colleagues claimed only to have used the UKPSF as a reference source rather than as a template. In the absence of an embedded or enshrined single treaty arrangement with the heterogeneous Aboriginal peoples of Australia, there is significantly less widespread inter-cultural reverence for different perspectives on learning. (http://uniteachingcriteria.edu.au/)

As a diverse, and somewhat eclectic, sector, the Canadian tertiary sector does not have a single professional framework for educators to aspire to. This is a country in which quality assurance is largely the responsibility of the Provinces, and there is no central national oversight, so this it is hardly surprising. Nonetheless, there are positive moves towards a recognition of the inherent values embedded in indigenous customs and practice with regards to learning, in a document produced by Universities Canada in 2015, entitled "Principles on Indigenous education".

What the Aotearoa and Canadian examples share, and are absent from both the Australian and UK contexts, is an explicit desire not only to be inclusive and make liberal use of words such as access and equality (shared by all) but also to advocate for the indigenization, as well as the internationalization, of the learning experience. I would argue this is a serious omission from the UKPSF. It is absent from any derivation that does not, or is not permitted, to alter the original. There needs to be, I suggest, an acknowledgement of the unique cultural context in which any framework is drafted and explicit recognition of the philosophical and socio-cultural values that are embedded within it.

In the context of the UKPSF, this could be remedied by an additional statement in each category of elements; I'd make them top of the list, or number '0'.

Core Knowledge (K0)

The cultural context in which knowledge is created and valued within their discipline.

Professional Values (P0)

Recognise different epistemological frameworks and perspectives on learning and disciplinary knowledge.

Areas of Activity (A0)

Embrace indigenous perspectives in all aspects of the educational practice.

That's what's missing. The challenge from an Anglo-European-American (post-enlightenment, Judeo-Christian, rationalist) perspective is to acknowledge that there is 'another' way of experiencing and learning-in and -about the world.

Following a review of institutional websites in October 2014 it is clear that the vast majority of UK higher education institutions have explicit policy statements relating to the provision of personal tutoring (80%) with the remainder stating such support in more obtuse references or in delegated documents at faculty or departmental level. Whilst the overwhelming preference is to use the term 'personal tutors' other refinements such as 'personal academic tutors' are also used alongside aligned roles such as 'year tutor' and 'Dean of students'. Approximately 50% UK HEIs on their public webpages reference the use of personal development planning (PDP) alongside personal tutor support. At least 75% provide detailed web support for students defining the role of personal tutors alongside a range of other support services. It is noticeable that this is an active area of policy development with over 80% of policy statements having been updated in 2013 or 2014. The preference for over 90% of institutions is for a fairly traditional blend of personal guidance usually under the guise of:

Academic guidance

Academic support

Career planning

Pastoral support

This closely follows the benchmarking documents issued by Watts in 1999, when arguably there was more homogeneity in provision, who following an analysis of the role of personal advisers in post-compulsory education, stated the purpose of effective provision was:

Higher Education Academy, in its work on widening participation, outlined a similar set of benchmarks with increasingly diverse communities in mind. The resulting recommendations suggest that personal tutoring comprises:

To provide of a stable point of contact within the University;

To provide guidance on higher education processes and procedures and expectations;

To provide academic feedback and development aimed at orientation of new students to academic demands;

personal welfare support;

To provide referral to sources of further information;

To build the institutional relationship and the sense of belonging.

(Thomas, 2006)

This ‘model’ of personal tutorial support was born at a time when institutions were largely ‘campus-based’ and many of them ‘residential campus-based’ with the vast majority of students living-in halls. It also originates in a highly selective environment when significantly less than the current target of 50% of school leavers attending further or higher education. The reality of plurality in provision surely require equally diverse responses. Ultimately institutions may need to relinquish ownership of its custodial relationship with the students and instead replace it with a system that empowers students to search for relevant support. The increasing diversity of the student body, drawn from all sections of society, regions, countries, nationality, and ages as well differing modes of study from online participation and distance study, to workplace and off-campus programs, surely questions the models of support but have stood scrutiny for so long. Given there is nearly universal agreement of the need for students to have access to ‘learning support’ this is the logical place to begin to assess provision.

Theoretical Models of Learning Support

The role of the personal tutor, under what name and guise, has been the subject of extensive writings although relatively little empirical research, with some subject or domain specific exceptions (Burk & Bender, 2005; Powell & Mason, 2013; Symonds, Lawson, & Robinson, 2007). Research focuses on cohort studies and deal primarily with subject skills specific support. There has been little research linking motivational and psychological factors with the operation of tutor support. Burke and Bender (2005) found that despite the formal support mechanisms in place students frequently relied on themselves and their informal peer networks. They also noted a gender difference with female students going outside the institution more frequently than their male counterparts. Studies addressing the needs of a particular demographic are frequently too generic to be of value in policy planning although some large international comparison studies to provide useful insights. Whilst the importance of student support services as a measure of institutional attractiveness alongside its academic, teaching and research profile is highlighted by studies (Kelo & Rogers, 2010) the actually uptake of services contradicts this assertion.

Studies relating to student support mechanisms have tended to focus on the question of retention and progress. One notable theoretical position by Vincent Tinto, described as Interactionalist Theory, is concerned with the early departure of students from colleges and universities. This work focuses primarily on the fear of failure by students and the failure of the institution to create a sense of community of belonging (Tinto, 1993). This work has been influential particularly in the US in influencing morals of student support but its emphasis has been on a traditional campus community despite that one empirical study could find only a single institution supported only 5 of Tinto’s original 13 propositions (Berger & Braxton, 1998).

More recent attempts by Ormond Simpson to develop theory of learner support in the context of distance learning is invaluable in basing its conclusion in the fields of learning and motivational psychology. Summoning Dweck's self theory and Anderson's advocacy for proactive support, Simpson suggests that there is a noticeable institutional benefit in the retention of students through development of alternative models of learning skills development and support. We should exercise caution however since Anderson suggests that remediation (intervention to support failing study skills) risk demotivating learners over time (Clifton & Anderson, 2002) and there is evidence that even learners who are made familiar with their personal learning style may not find any correlation with their motivation for learning (Jelfs, Richardson, & Price, 2009). There is broad agreement that study skills alone are insufficient and that motivation proves critical, with notable US research with school leavers identifying that students who receive self efficacy training have a higher retention rate than those receiving learning skills alone (Barrios, 1997).

Anderson and Clifton have advocated a "strengths approach" in researching the importance of self-esteem in the learning process. The premise is that individuals do best when they focus on their strengths rather than their weaknesses and therefore focusing on those weaknesses may not be a particularly effective way of improving success. Rather they suggest that the identification and support for existing strengths, and understanding the means to transfer those skills for effective study, proves long-term gains. Anderson and Clifton identify some 30 strengths which can be explored in a face-to-face programme of encounters over number will of weeks (Clifton & Anderson, 2002) however Boniwell has suggested a nine-point approach for the relevant member of staff to use with individual students. This 9 point approach follows:

Emphasising positive dimensional is during initial contact.

Focusing on existing strengths and competencies.

Identifying past success and achievement.

Encourage "positive affect", building on hope and aspiration.

Identify underlying values, goals and motivations.

Exploring personal stories, the rating one's own life story.

Identifying resources and support.

Validating effort rather than achievement.

Finally: exploring uncertainties and lack of skills.

(Boniwell, 2003 cited in Simpson, 2008)

Whilst Boniwell suggest some means to facilitate these conversations between staff and students should be enabled by institutions, the reality is many faculty would find such empathic discussions difficult.

Work by Vansteenkiste resulting in a "self-determination theory" identified that students performed best when they felt autonomous in their study choices (Vansteenkiste, Lens, & Deci, 2006), whilst evidence from the Open University UK that students who have a choice of study material and participate three options have the maximum student retention (Tresman, 2002). Most programmes of study however have been designed with deadlines, fixed content and rigid assessment processes make such findings difficult to implement in most institutions. Other theoretical models that explore notions of students self-identity include "achievement goal theory” in which one of three goals identifies students self orientation namely 1) mastery goals - to reach genuine competence, 2) performance goals - to demonstrate competence to others, 3) performance avoidance goals - to ensure avoiding perception of inadequacies (Skaalvik, 1997). Other researchers have concluded that there are complex social motivational factors involved and that there are reasons to pursue strategies that support performance goals as well as mastery goals (Harackiewicz, Barron, Pintrich, Elliot, & Thrash, 2002).

Vansteenkiste and colleagues carried out empirical studies that have shown that intrinsic goal framing (relative to extrinsic goal framing and no-goal framing) produces deeper engagement in learning activities. These orientations also ensure better conceptual learning and higher persistence at learning activities (Vansteenkiste et al., 2006). Within certain highly competitive disciplines and understanding of student motivation within this theoretical construct might prove valuable. Similarly work by Pajares also argues that self-belief and self-comprehension are important determinates in study success but such conceptions are frequently faulty (Pajares, 1996). Empirical studies examined students awareness of their own relative competence or incompetence and identified that whilst 60% of students had a realistic expectation of their own competence 20% had excessively unrealistic of their competence and 20% a negatively soft judgement regarding their competence (Pajares, 2004 cited in Simpson, 2008).

Study skills have become associated with an add-on provision based on an historical assumption that students enter university already equipped with the appropriate skills in order to undertake higher learning (N. Bennett, Dunne, & Carre, 2000). In an environment in which study skills are framed as remedial provision for students who arrive without the assumed skills, notably international students and 'non-traditional' students, are immediately disadvantaged (Cottrell, 2001). Most UK universities provide, usually provided by specialist study support centres situated within learning and teaching centres or within library services, opportunities for students to undertake writing enhancement programmes and individual tuition. Ursula Wingate argues that separating study skills from subject content and the process of learning is ineffective and that study skills should be more fully integrated within modules and programmes (Wingate, 2006). There is an argument to suggest that a full range of literacies should be integrated into the learning experience so bad in the knowledge driven world universities can prepare individuals to be 'fully literate'.

Unless as institutions we opt to educate to the syllabus without ambition we must surely consider the ways in which plural literacies in our disciplines should be framed. I have elsewhere argued that effectively designed learning outcomes using a full range of educational objective taxonomies should enable all the full range of higher education skills, a full range of literacies, to be acquired within modules and programmes if appropriately designed (Atkinson, 2013).

Simpson, O. (2008). Motivating learners in open and distance learning: do we need a new theory of learner support? Open Learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning, 23(3), 159–170. doi:10.1080/02680510802419979

Tresman, S. (2002). Towards a Strategy for Improved Student Retention in Programmes of Open, Distance Education: A Case Study From the Open University UK. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 3(1). Retrieved from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/75

One might expect this diversity in provision in Higher Education to be reflected in the personal tutoring support provided however there is remarkably little difference in the way in which support for students is organised and delivered. It suggest that there is value in unshackling support systems from existing language and historical practices.

There are variations in the terminology used according to country, nature of the institution, and indeed discipline. Mentoring and ‘pastoral care’ appears to be the preferred term in nursing and medicine where is academic ‘tutor’ takes preference in humanities disciplines. Much of the UK literature insists on contrasting institutional tutoring systems against the benchmark of the 'Oxbridge model'. Since the concept of a personal tutor was introduced into higher education clearly students are less homogeneous body than they might once had deemed to be.

Recent figures from the Santander group suggest that more than 22% of students choose to remain living in the family home with 66% citing cost as the main reason (Marsh, 2014). Another recent survey of 1000 students by Education Phase puts the figure of those at home at 23%, and suggests that on average students travelled 91 miles between home and University to attend studies (Arnett, 2014). This suggests that the idea of the non-residential commuter institution is becoming more common with a consequence of increased ‘blended-learning’ delivery.

An NUS report in October 2013 also suggested that 2% of students had sought counselling services in the previous year but 20% of students consider themselves to have a mental health issue with 13% having had suicidal thoughts. 92% of respondents in the NUS survey suggested they had experienced 'mental distress' with the main causes cited as coursework related (65%), exams (54%) and financial difficulties (47%). Over 25% of those surveyed had not shared their concerns with anyone and only 10% accessing the services provided by their institution (Froio, 2013).

Another significant emerging trends is for students to be working as an increased proportion of their time alongside study. A survey of 2128 students found 45% having a part-time job and 13% in full-time employment, much of which continues during term time as well as vacations. Most cite the need to earn money although it is interesting that 53% suggest that students identify their future employment prospects as a prime motivation (Gil, 2014). Universities typically suggest a limit between 10 and 15 hours of part-time work a week during term time some institutions attempt to prohibit students from working at all. Other restrictions on work face the increasing proportion of international students (UKCISA, 2013).

In 2012 – 13 the gender split of the HEI student population was 56.2% female and 43.8% male. But even a glance at the data begins to suggest the need for different models of support. The gender balance for part-time students were 60.5% female and 39.5% male, for full-time and sandwich students the split was 54.5% female and 45.5% male. We might expect there to be significant differences in the support provided for part-time students and that this might also address gender differences. For non-EU domiciled students, often referred to as 'international' students, the overall gender gap is less significant 49.2% female and 50.8% male. However if we look at other undergraduate study (other than towards achievement of a degree) there are interesting variations, female students make up 65.3% of those studying part-time as opposed to 34.7 of male students. Even before we explore the differences in age and domestic circumstance it is clear that there will be differences in the needs of students at different levels. Add to that complexity we might also include the 598,000 students who are studying wholly overseas but either registered at UK HEI or working towards an award given by a UK HEI in 2012-13 (www.hesa.ac.uk).

Clearly our HEIs represent incredibly diverse communities of learning and existing mechanisms for socialization and support are challenged by this heterogeneous student body. The ‘ideal’ of the Oxbridge College Tutor has persisted and much effort and resource is committed to try and replicate it regardless of contextual realities. What are the alternative approaches

Bibliography

Arnett, G. (2014, August 18). Students travel an average of 91 miles from home to attend university. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2014/aug/18/students-travel-average-91-miles-home-university

Froio, N. (2013, October 10). Number of university students seeking counselling rises 33%. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/oct/10/university-students-seeking-counselling-mental-health-uk

Gil, N. (2014, August 11). One in seven students work full-time while they study. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/aug/11/students-work-part-time-employability

Marsh, S. (2014, August 26). Rise of the live-at-home student commuter. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/aug/26/rise-live-at-home-student-commuter

UKCISA. (2013, August 23). UKCISA - Working during your studies. Retrieved October 26, 2014, from http://www.ukcisa.org.uk/International-Students/Study-work--more/Working-during-your-studies/

I delivered a webinar recently on technology enhanced learning. It was a 90-minute session (possibly too long) in Adobe Connect attended by some 15 faculty. Several of the evaluation comments suggested that the first third of the webinar, dealing with shared understandings of terminology and a history of the subject under discussion, was unnecessary, superfluous. I'm struck by how often in my current practice in British higher education that the contextualisation of what we do is often treated as a luxury. Pragmatism pervades everything and there is an assumption that we all know where we are, we all know what needs to be done, and the objective is simply to do it. Universities have often been accused of being ivory towers, places where people ruminate detached from reality, but there must surely be a place for a pause and a thought.

Rongomaraeroa - Te Papa's Marae (Authors Photo 2005)

Perhaps the reason I reacted with some discomfort to the suggestion that the historical context to a discussion of technology enhanced learning was superfluous has to do with the reactions I get from colleagues on another project currently underway. The POISE project, part of the HEA Internationalisation change initiative, stands for personal orientation to international student experience. The original idea had been to establish to support individuals to identify their own epistemological assumptions, students and staff, in order that a more meaningful dialogue about adjusting to higher education study might be possible. But whilst the stress of the original project was on personal orientation the realities of implementation in the British HE context consistently stresses the student experience, the here and now, today's problem being dealt with by today's student support person. There is a sense in which holistic medicine, whole person medicine, has been replaced by the liberal prescription of the pragmatic pill.

I found myself turning back to the concept, the principles, of Kaupapa Māori. I am not Māori, and so these principles are necessarily engaged with at an intellectual and emotional level rather than from within, based on three periods of working in New Zealand since 1998. In 1990 Graham Hingangaroa Smith outlined six principles of Kaupapa Māori within the context of education, its implementation and research. Other theorists have expanded these concepts further in the years since. This is an evolving body of a communities’ intellectual, spiritual and inter-personal exploration of identity. In a very real sense this is ‘identity-work’. It is something we appear to do very little of in the British ‘academy’.

Kaupapa Māori principles include (but are not limited to):

Tino Rangatiratanga – The Principle of Self-determination: to sovereignty, autonomy, control, self-determination and independence, allowing for and advocating Maori control over their own culture, aspirations and destiny.

Whānau – The Principle of Extended Family Structure: acknowledges the relationships that Māori have to one another and to the world around them. Core to Kaupapa Māori and key elements of Māori society and culture, acknowledging the responsibility and obligations of everyone to nurture and care for these relationships.

Kaupapa - The Principle of Collective Philosophy: the shared aspirations and collective vision of Māori communities.

Other powerful concepts have developed within Kaupapa Māori including the principles of:

Ata - The Principle of Growing Respectful Relationships (Pohata 2005): relates to the building and nurturing of relationships, negotiating boundaries, creating respectful spaces and corresponding behaviours.

It is not only the substance, and there is undoubtedly something substantial about Kaupapa Māori, that appeals to me, rather it is the principle that behind each action, each intervention, there is a purposeful connection to a collective sense of people, of belonging. There appears to be a disconnect between the day-to-day activities of providing education in the British context and an engagement, a deliberate and conscious engagement, with the development of the individual that education is intended to form.

Kaupapa Māori, and indeed other world views that have developed independently of the western ‘scientific’ positivist paradigms, create different epistemological frameworks, different spaces within which educational discourses occur. I learnt in a very personal way in 2008 when I joined Massey University that the Māori world view does affect the way New Zealand educators, of all cultural backgrounds, see the world in which they educate. I drew a model on the whiteboard and a colleague simply asked ‘does it have to go that way up’. It is subtle, not always as evident to them as to those visiting from the outside, but it is there, a cultural ‘undertone’ that enriches and suffuses the discourse. Whilst we have done much to think about student centred learning in the UK, we often appear to mean placing the student at the centre of our machine not centering the student. We prepare them to fit into the universal mechanical rational world we anticipate needs and wants them, we do not equip them well to reshape themselves and their world. I continue to believe that understanding the context, presumptions and assumptions of any particular discipline subject or issue is an important precursor to meaning making. I believe an epistemological self-awareness is a prerequisite to a meaningful education.

Smith, G. H. (1990) ‘Research Issues Related to Maori Education’, paper presented to NZARE Special Interest Conference, Massey University, reprinted in 1992, The Issue of Research and Maori, Research Unit for Maori Education, The University of Auckland

We really need to know what we each believe about learning, our personal epistemologies, before we start learning and teaching. Do we really change the way we see, feel, and hear international voices, or do we just make structural adjustments around the edges of our programmes, curricula and induction processes. We build prayer rooms, but do we build bridges? We introduce new cuisine into our refectories, but how often do we break bread together?

There are many excellent projects and studies across higher education that are informing change. Beyond international exchange schemes and recruiting foreign students, I'm keen to see how transformational they really are, or could be. Next week a colleague and I join representatives from nine other institutions for the kick-off meeting in York for the UK’s Higher Education Academy (HEA) 2012 Internationalisation Change Academy. We have proposed something we hope will be supported and encouraged that does not have direct structural change as one of its objectives. Rather we want to invite our colleagues, faculty and students, to pause and reflect on what they believe about themselves with respect to learning, to be aware of their own epistemological beliefs.

We start from the premise that all our students at BPP University College are ‘international students’. Everyone now operates within a global context regardless of his or her subject discipline, his or her nationality, status or mode of study. Our project, entitled Personal Orientation to the International Student Experience (POISE), builds on this intrinsic international context by providing a consistent, supportive and, we suggest, transformative, orientation to study. But this is not something we 'do' to, or for, international students, it is something the whole institution, faculty and students regardless of programmes of study will be encouraged to engage in.

Aims of the POISE project

Taking a toolkit approach, we aim to provide students and faculty, notably but not exclusively those with Personal Tutor duties, with a single instrument that will guide the individual through a reflective self-evaluation of their epistemological perspectives and attitudes and approaches to higher study. Implemented within the provision of student support across the University, and building on a comprehensive system of pastoral care, the intention is to offer a shared language enabling an exchange of perspectives, expectations and frustrations with respect to university study.

Using Marlene Schommer’s Epistemological Questionnaire (SEQ) as a basis (Schommer, 1990, 1993) or an alternative, and conscious of their critics (Clarebout, Elen, Luyten, & Bamps, 2001), as well as with reference to Bennett's important work on inter-cultural sensitivities (Hammer, Bennett, & Wiseman, 2003) we hope to develop an appropriate instrument. We hope also to borrow from Biggs’s Study Process Questionnaire (SPQ) instruments and design a single, or set of inter-related, instruments within a coherent toolkit (Burnett & Dart, 2000). Engagement with the toolkit, by individual faculty and student, will illuminate some well-documented (but evolving) cultural differences in expectations of study at higher levels. This comprehensive personal ‘audit’ will then form the basis for collegial discussion between students and within tutorial contexts.

We think it will prove invaluable to have faculty members also engaging with POISE, providing them with a common frame of reference, a personal stimulus for professional development and reflection, and encouragement to explore the similarities and differences in epistemological beliefs. Faculty will consequently be supported as they move beyond the anecdotal ‘challenges posed by International Students’ to a greater acknowledgement, and deeper understanding, of the richness of learning and teaching opportunities contained within these different epistemological perspectives. We want to support the idea that it is not necessary for individuals to ‘sacrifice’ their own perspectives in coming to understand an alternative. Rather, they must work towards ‘Third Place Learning’ as a shared alternative, indeed perhaps our institutions are themselves inevitable examples of Third Place Learning (Alagic, Rimmington, & Orel, 2009).

Enhancing the Student Experience

We anticipate that the POISE effect will be greatest where it forms part of an early supportive intervention for all students across a cohort and we'll be exploring in this project how best to 'administer' it. But, we also anticipate that it will have value at each stage of the student experience as the individual adjusts, adapts and develops strategies and techniques for negotiating these different perspectives.

Having faculty and students develop a shared appreciation within learning communities of different approaches to study will hopefully enhance students' experience as well as providing a common frame of reference for discussing issues arising from different expectations. This matters. It matters because like many HEI’s BPP University College is expanding the range of its provision for international students and along with this extension of provision comes a raft of additional student support services, both academic and pastoral. Increasingly diverse student populations should be seen as positive opportunities for greater international insights being shared by faculty and students and drawn in to the curriculum.

We will be developing an official POISE website as part of the HEA project I due course but I hope also to share my experiences of this project, due for completion by March 2013. I am also exploring the appropriateness of Baxter Magolda’s ‘Epistemological Reflection Model’ (Bock, 2002) and King and Kitchener’s Reflective Judgment Interview (Kitchener, Lynch, Fischer, & Wood, 1993). I would be delighted to hear from anyone with experience of administering these kinds of epistemological belief surveys with their students, and particularly, with faculty.